


A War With A Cat Named Azog

by LittleLightLittleFire



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Azog is the world's most passive aggressive Siamese, Cat fluff?, Fluff, M/M, cat-sitting, domestic AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-09-23 19:18:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9672500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLightLittleFire/pseuds/LittleLightLittleFire
Summary: When Bilbo has to go away on a business trip, he asks his boyfriend to cat-sit. Unfortunately for Thorin, Azog is much smarter and more evil than your average kitty.Title loosely based on a song by The Weakerthans called A Plea From A Cat Named Virtute





	1. Chapter 1

Thorin pulled the key to Bilbo's house out of his pocket and unlocked the door. The delicious aroma of Bilbo's latest culinary exploit wafted over him and Thorin's stomach rumbled.

"Smells delicious!" he called as he hung up his coat and kicked off his shoes.

"Thank you!" a voice replied from the kitchen.

Wandering in, Thorin found Bilbo, his curls askew, poring over a tatty set of notes and several steaming pans. He engulfed Bilbo in his arms and buried his noise in his hair, breathing in deeply. Instantly, Thorin felt a hundred times better.

"Long day?" said Bilbo, muffled by Thorin's chest.

"Mmm."

"Wine?"

"Mmm."

"You'll have to put me down then."

With great reluctance and one last squeeze, Thorin let Bilbo go.

"It's going to be a struggle to get the project finished by Thranduil's deadline. There's too much to do, not enough funds and Dain's surveyors don't know their arse from their elbow."

"I'm sure it will be fine," soothed Bilbo, handing over a glass of red wine. "If it's not done, it's not like anyone's going to die, is it? It's just buildings."

"No..."

"Well then."

"You're right," admitted Thorin with a sigh. He loosened his tie and took a swig of his wine. Tellingly, Bilbo didn't berate him for drinking too fast and not 'letting the wine breathe' (whatever that meant). He must look as stressed as he felt.

"What's for tea?"

"Jambalaya. I thought I'd try something new..."

Uh-oh.

Thorin placed his glass carefully down on the side.

"What is it?"

"What's what?" asked Bilbo. He stirred at the virulent orange concoction with an air of affected innocence.

"You only 'try something new' when you want to butter me up."

"I do not!" protested Bilbo.

Thorin raised an eyebrow pointedly.

"Ok, fine. There is something I wanted to ask you... My publisher has accepted my proposal for that new book."

"That's marvellous!"

Bilbo's ability to combine travel and food writing in new and amusing ways was a talent that Thorin greatly admired. Indeed, so did a large number of other people and Bilbo now made a comfortable living out of it. Nonetheless, Thorin smelt a rat. So to speak.

"...And?" he asked warily.

"I'm going to have to go to India for a few weeks."

"...And?"

 "And I'm going to need someone to look after Azog."

_There_  it was. 

Thorin sighed. Azog - or as Thorin called him 'The Goblin' - was Bilbo's cat. A skinny, blue-eyed Siamese, he consisted primarily of ears, legs and malevolence. Azog  _loved_  Bilbo, _hated_  everyone else and had a long-running vendetta against Thorin. 

"Can't Prim take him?"

She's just had a baby, so no. Besides, Azog doesn't like loud noises."

"The Gaffer?"

"Sam is allergic."

"Frodo likes him. I bet he'd love to look after the cat. Earn a bit of pocket money. "

"Frodo's _eight,_ Thorin."

"Can you not send him to a cattery?" said Thorin, trying to hide his desperation. 

"He won't like that, and I don't want to disrupt him more than necessary."

"And he was banned from the last one," muttered Thorin. 

"He was not _banned_ ," replied Bilbo hotly. "I was just asked not to bring him again."

Thorin gave Bilbo a look. "Banned."

" _Anyway,"_ Bilbo ploughed on, "Azog knows you and he tolerates you, so I was wondering if you would look after him?"

'Tolerate' is not how Thorin would have characterised Azog's feelings towards him. More like 'targeted spite', but he wasn't about to avail Bilbo of that notion. As Bilbo had pointed out before, he'd had Azog much longer than he'd had Thorin. 

"I can't have cats in my flat. It's against the terms of the lease," Thorin said as one last bid to weasel his way out. 

"Of course, you would stay here."

_Of course I would,_  thought Thorin sardonically. "How about I just pop in on my way to work and feed him then?"

Bilbo looked aghast. "He'll get lonely!"

"Darling, he's a _cat._  They're solitary animals."

"Yes, but he's used to having people about."

"Servants, you mean."

" _Thorin,"_  chided Bilbo. "Please?"

Then Bilbo pulled The Face and Thorin knew he'd lost. 

"Alright. But you owe me. Big time. And if he vomits in my shoes again, you're buying me new ones."

"Oh, that was an accident and you know it!" 

Thorin was unconvinced. 

~

After a delicious meal and several glasses of wine, Bilbo and Thorin had curled up on the sofa. They were _supposed_  to be watching a film, but Thorin found it much more entertaining to kiss as many bits of Bilbo as he could reach and draw out those wonderful sounds he knew his boyfriend could make. 

Hands were beginning to wander towards interesting places when Thorin suddenly got the feeling he was being watched. After a couple of years in Bilbo's acquaintance, he'd learnt to trust these instincts. Azog, the little pervert, had crept up along the back of the couch and was perched near their heads, watching them with poorly-disguised disdain. As soon as Thorin made eye contact, Azog reacted. 

" _Eeeeee-rrow!"_

Bilbo, who had not notice their furry voyeur, jumped out of his skin.

"Oh, hello. Where've you been this evening?"

" _Rrrrrow."_

"That's nice," Bilbo responded. "Your dinner is in your bowl."

Azog blinked down at them. They paused, awkwardly intertwined, waiting for the bloody creature to wander off. He did not. Instead, he yawned in their faces, blasting them with foetid cat breath. Thorin and Bilbo both recoiled in disgust. Not quite a bucket of ice water, but it killed the mood all the same. 

"Upstairs?" asked Thorin. 

"Upstairs," Bilbo agreed. 

They heaved themselves up and Bilbo tickled Azog's ears on his way past. Thorin glared. 

" _Brrp,"_ said Azog, and he wound his tail around his skinny legs in a self-satisfied sort of way. 

As Thorin followed Bilbo upstairs, he mused that Azog was far, _far_ smarter than Bilbo ever gave him credit for. 


	2. Chapter 2

The war started, as most wars do, rather anti-climatically. Thorin, having moved his luggage in for the duration and waved Bilbo off at the doorstep, wandered round with unease, before finally flopping down onto Bilbo's sofa and finding something to watch on Netflix. 

About halfway through his latest guilty pleasure, Thorin felt the familiar prickle at the back of his neck. He was being surveilled. He looked over his shoulder to see Azog sat on the stairs, peering unblinkingly at him through the banisters. The pair regarded each other for a moment. 

"What?"

" _Rrow."_

"Go away, you fleabag. I'm trying to watch this."

" _Eeee-rhoow."_

"What? What do you want?"

" _Reeeeeewwooow."_

"Piss off! Petulant goblin-child," muttered Thorin. Azog snorted and padded off up the stairs and Thorin returned to his program. If cat-sitting could be like this for the rest of Bilbo's trip, that would be _great._

Thorin climbed into Bilbo's unnecessarily extravagant four-poster bed, having seen nothing of the little monster for the remainder of the day. This was fine, Thorin told himself, as Azog was probably out traumatizing the local wildlife. It took a little while for Thorin to fall asleep - the bed was far too large and far too empty without Bilbo in it - but exhaustion won out in the end.

The alarm went off at its usual ungodly hour and Thorin rolled out of bed and shuffled, bleary-eyed and yawning, to the bathroom. Dropping his boxers, he began to attend to the business of emptying the tank. Mid-flow, he caught a flicker of movement by his feet and extended his concentration to areas further down. 

Head tilted in interest, Azog sat in between Thorin's feet, staring intently up at the collection of dangly objects and the stream of liquid pattering into the toilet bowl. The audience was uncomfortable but it was when Azog shifted on his haunches, and Thorin had visions of claws and teeth in the vicinity of said dangly objects, that Thorin shooed him away with his foot. 

Azog accompanied Thorin all the way down the stairs, making more noise than Thorin was happy dealing with before his first cup of coffee. Whilst he waited for the kettle to boil, Thorin poured Azog's biscuits into the _still_ -yowling cat's bowl. Thorin watched with some fascination as Azog continued the litany of complaining, even with a face full of biscuit. 

At a loss, Thorin decided to consult the peanut gallery which, in this case, consisted of a group chat between him, Dis, Fili, Kili, Dwalin and Balin. Kili had named it 'The Oakenshield Squad', for reasons best known to himself.

_< <The Goblin won't shut up. He's now eating and swearing at me at the same time.>>_

 Fili: _< <Wait, do you mean actual swearing?? Or just meowing?? Because actual swearing would be super impressive.>>_

_ <<What do you think?>>_

Dis: _< <The poor thing probably just misses Bilbo.>>_

 "Do you miss Bilbo?" Thorin asked of Azog. 

" _WAAAAAAAANG,_ " came the reply. 

_< <How do I make it stop? It's SO LOUD.>>_

 Dwalin: _< <Anti-freeze.>>_

Dis: _< <Dwalin! Don't be such a barbarian!>>_

Dwalin: _< <What? The man asked me a question.>>_

Kili: _< <Yeah, not cool Dwals ;) >>_

Thorin rolled his eyes at the awful pun. Breakfast now over, Azog planted himself in the doorway of the kitchen, still ' _waaaaang'_ -ing.

Fili: _< < Give him a fuss. A bit of attention and he'll leave you alone.>>_

From past experience, this was the exact opposite of Azog's _modus operandi_. If Thorin caved, the brat would just follow him round all morning, getting hair on his suit trousers and scratching at his shoes. 'Playing'. 

"Go and bother someone else," Thorin said, stepping round the cat. "I need to get ready for work."

Azog yowled plaintively and watched Thorin make his way upstairs. There was a brief moment's silence and then Thorin heard the click-clack of the catflap. He instantly relaxed. 

 

Thorin flopped onto the sofa, trying not to tip food all over his lap. With no boyfriend to welcome him home after a hard and stressful day at work, Thorin had resorted to comfort food. Steak, cheesy mash and asparagus; he'd been looking forward to it since his bland sandwich at lunch. His phone started to ring just as he was about to tuck in and he would have cussed the person out and ignored the call, but it was Bilbo. 

"Hello, love."

" _Hello! Just thought I'd let you know I've arrived and everything."_

"A text would have done the job."

" _Yes, but I wanted to hear your voice. I miss you."_

"I miss you too; the house is too quiet. How's Mumbai?"

" _Busy. Noisy. Colourful. A little overwhelming, actually. But I imagine that's partly down to jet lag. The flight here was awful. I almost missed my connection in Dubai. But I'm here now. How was your day?"_

"The usual," answered Thorin, after taking a large gulp of mash and swallowing hurriedly. On the end of the line, Bilbo laughed. 

_"What's for dinner?"_

"Steak."

" _Nice. How's Azog?"_

"Fine. Fine. He was about this morning, I don't know where he is at the moment though-"

" _RRRRRRREEEEEOW."_

_"-_ There he is," Thorin said with a sigh as the cat scrabbled up the back of the sofa to perch by his head. 

" _Has he been behaving himself?"_

Thorin glared pointedly at Azog who gave an innocent mew in reply. "For I given value of 'behaving', I suppose."

_"I'm sure he'll settle down. It must all be rather alarming for him. Oh, I forgot to tell you before I left; the numbers of the hotels I'll be staying at and the itinerary are on the coffee table."_

"Err..."

" _Near the remotes."_

Putting his plate to one side, Thorin reached over to sift through the pile of letters and magazines piled up. 

Quick as a flash and before Thorin could even process what was happening, Azog had jumped down from the back of the sofa, grabbed as many asparagus spears as he could fit in his mouth and scampered off, dripping butter as he went. 

"What the _hell?!"_ exclaimed Thorin. 

" _What? What? Is everything ok? What just happened?"_

"That bloody cat...Just stole my asparagus!"

" _Ah. Yes. He does that."_

"But... I have steak! He's a cat! Why the _asparagus?!"_

" _I have no idea."_ Thorin could hear Bilbo trying his hardest not to laugh. " _It's just one of his little quirks."_

"Your cat is certifiable, I hope you know that."

" _I'll let you get on with your food, before Azog remembers he's supposed to be a carnivore and steals the steak next. Love you."_

_"_ Love you too."

Bilbo hung up, leaving Thorin alone with substantially less food than when he'd started the call. He looked at the plate feeling somewhat depressed; he'd been looking forward to that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is why my mum's cat is allowed nowhere near us when we're eating asparagus. Cats, they're so weird.  
> Thanks for reading, kudosing and commenting! I hope you enjoyed the update!

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by allllll the arsehole things my cats have done/still do and my own little Goblin. And a conversation with Chelidona. You can blame her for this one.


End file.
